Experts in the News

China’s so-called social credit system, a new high-tech program of mass surveillance and coercion aimed suppressing political dissent, could have a chilling effect on Americans doing business in China. “Very few American technology company people have been wanting to go to China recently," said China Studies scholar Steve Lewis.

How does Africa face different energy-use and climate-change challenges than the rest of the world, and what does that mean for global energy and climate strategy? Nonresident energy fellow Todd Moss provided an explanation.

“China has to go against the economic calculus to retire at least some of the coal if it wants to lower emission levels,” said energy fellow Anna Mikulska. “This is why we see China still consuming so much.”

The institute has initiated a working group to develop a U.S. protocol for paying ranchers and farmers to store carbon in their soil. The current system for voluntary carbon transactions is broken and needs to be fixed, group founders said. The group is co-led by Baker Institute Rice Faculty Scholar Jim Blackburn and Center for Energy Studies Senior Director Ken Medlock.

Recent developments in the Middle East have created new opportunities for diplomacy, said Baker Institute director Edward P. Djerejian.